Mitchell, Melissa & Rutledge, Michael (2002). High School Biology Teachers’ Knowledge Structure, Acceptance and Teaching of Evolution. The American Biology Teacher. 64, 21-28.
This article tested 1000 Indiana public high school biology teachers to evaulate their familiarity with evolution. The project requested the teachers to make concepts maps. Concept maps were chosen because the researchers not only liked that the responses received would be open-ended, but also found that a map would be a more accurate measurement of knowledge rather than a face to face interview.
They first asked teachers whether they supported evolution or now. They split the teachers up into non-believers, undecided, and accepters. They then asked how much time they spent teaching the concept. Finally, they had each teacher create a concept map that analyzes all the factors of evolution.
They found that the non-believers had an average of 5.7 concepts on their concept map and claimed that it was only a theory and there was relatively little evidence for evolution. The undecided group averaged from 10 to 12 concepts per map. The accepters averaged 14 to 16 concepts and made up 67% of the teachers who participated in the survey.
Although Learner (2000) claims that Indiana was rated “excellent” for their evolutionary teachings, they found many teachers showed biases towards evoltion ranging from how much time they spent teaching it, to the evidence and evolutionary mechanisms that they presented in class.
I thought this article was interesting because it shows how much a unit can vary based on teachers opinions/stances to a certain topic. One thing that struck me was that the teachers who provided the most detailed and accurate maps in relation to evolution (with accurate representations of evolutionary mechanisms) were the people who supported evolution. This could suggest that the ones interested are the ones who learn the material and are able to replicate it on a concept map. However, it could also suggest that if more teachers were educated on evolution, more teachers might change their opinions on evolution. I believe more could have been done in this study to analyze the correlation between knowledge level and support of the evolution argument.
Mitchell, Melissa & Rutledge, Michael (2002). High School Biology Teachers’ Knowledge Structure, Acceptance and Teaching of Evolution. The American Biology Teacher. 64, 21-28.
http://0-www.jstor.org.helin.uri.edu:80/stable/pdfplus/4451231.pdf
This article tested 1000 Indiana public high school biology teachers to evaulate their familiarity with evolution. The project requested the teachers to make concepts maps. Concept maps were chosen because the researchers not only liked that the responses received would be open-ended, but also found that a map would be a more accurate measurement of knowledge rather than a face to face interview.
They first asked teachers whether they supported evolution or now. They split the teachers up into non-believers, undecided, and accepters. They then asked how much time they spent teaching the concept. Finally, they had each teacher create a concept map that analyzes all the factors of evolution.
They found that the non-believers had an average of 5.7 concepts on their concept map and claimed that it was only a theory and there was relatively little evidence for evolution. The undecided group averaged from 10 to 12 concepts per map. The accepters averaged 14 to 16 concepts and made up 67% of the teachers who participated in the survey.
Although Learner (2000) claims that Indiana was rated “excellent” for their evolutionary teachings, they found many teachers showed biases towards evoltion ranging from how much time they spent teaching it, to the evidence and evolutionary mechanisms that they presented in class.
I thought this article was interesting because it shows how much a unit can vary based on teachers opinions/stances to a certain topic. One thing that struck me was that the teachers who provided the most detailed and accurate maps in relation to evolution (with accurate representations of evolutionary mechanisms) were the people who supported evolution. This could suggest that the ones interested are the ones who learn the material and are able to replicate it on a concept map. However, it could also suggest that if more teachers were educated on evolution, more teachers might change their opinions on evolution. I believe more could have been done in this study to analyze the correlation between knowledge level and support of the evolution argument.
Sammy D.